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[OM] Re: Mini Macro questions

Subject: [OM] Re: Mini Macro questions
From: "Scott Peden" <scotpeden@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 01:25:29 -0700
Moose,

So, your suggesting a 50 mm lens. If I have a EX 25, any Zuiko 50 mm will
work, or would a Zuiko 50 mm macro work better? Specifically a 50/2?

I have a VINTAGE "OLYMPUS-ZUIKO AUTO-S" 50mm f1.4
That I have been trying to get a fast payment to him, he doesn't take Pay
Pal, he does take BidPay, Bid Pay doesn't take my Amex credit card, so after
wasting days at this, I'll take time off work to get a stupid money order or
wait 2 more weeks before it gets here. Some auctions are a real PITA.

This not being a Macro lens, would I do better with getting an actual Macro?
I looked for 50/2 lenses, didn't see anything under 300 dollars.......and
then it was only one under $400, this is the price range I should expect?
Honestly, if this is "it" or if a 90/2 would be as good or better, please,
all of you knowledgeable folks speak up, I'll have maybe $200-250 at the
beginning of next month I can invest in my Zuikoholic fix. In the other
spectrum, the EC 1.4 is on my list as well as a good 300+ Zuiko Zoom, the
EC.1.4 can at least be used with the 40-150 I have, which hardly gets used
as it is to narrow in the close range (for most of my shooting) and not
enough zoom in the other end.

I'm glad you like the DOF in the Pixie cup... but I wasn't happy with any of
them, as I had nothing that was sharp and I moved the macro rail a little
one way then a little the other and for some reason, they all came out about
the same or terribly out of focus, but I wasn't worried about deleting a few
pics, I was worried that I couldn't see well enough in the view finder to
get the focus just right, I have that trouble a lot, so I shoot more closer
and further away hoping to get one in focus. When I did the reverse macro
and had a portion of the cup in focus, that was excellent, it was sharp. But
nair the Twain did meet, nor did I make a Mark on that Clemens.

Did I understand you suggestion, focus at 2.0, then move closer to 3.5 or
5.6? I started doing that with a ballast quality lens I got real cheap and
it sure helped a lot, I am learning manual, which if I'd had the money to
buy all the auto stuff, I'd never had a chance to learn the basics I guess.

Who makes the DZ 50?

OK, just read the 'true macro' paragraph, I got that now, non macro's won't
give me as sharp of a picture when made to do macro work though in their
range are great lenses.

Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly go over my myriad of questions, and
I'm even more thankful that you replied in a manner that is within my
ability to grasp at this point in time, even as basic as you went, I wonder
if I'dve understood all of this last Christmas......

When I first started doing Macros with the C-3000 and then cropping to get a
picture the size I wanted, my fiends would invariably ask, are you taking
pics of  the bugs, or the flowers.

My pat answer was always "YES!". And now I'm getting pollen in the picture,
along with a whole new level of unseen bugs.

Saturday or Sunday I will get some super macro's of the flower buds of a
Buck Brush (Ceanothus) California native Lilac, the flower buds are more
amazing to me than the flowers themselves, but they are just hard rocks,
then unkempt puff balls, until you can see them up close and in detail.

Then maybe in May I will be able to get the pics of the ants and mosquitoes
inside the Spotted Coral Root Orchids, and propose my theory that they are
the pollinators rather than the flies that someone thinks maybe might be the
pollinators. I also will be pushing for a better separation of the species
as the unspotted, I should have enough data to show they remain true and
shouldn't be in the same branch as the spotted, and that the Yellows and
Maroons are consistent too so they should be noted as different than the
standard red one.

Tomorrow is in the opposite direction, documenting with a long lens, what I
am told is the most southern, by at least 100 miles, Old Methuselah's beard
Lichen to be known to exist.

Love those digital cameras and the excuse to get a few miles of hiking in.

Scott


-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Moose
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 5:44 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: Mini Macro questions

Scott Peden wrote:
> Moose,
>
> I am interested.
>
> So you used a macro lens, 90/2.8 and then you cropped the images.
>   
Yes, I used the resolution of the sensor, rather than a lens that would 
focus closer, and threw away a lot of the original image area to end up 
with an image with the subject correctly framed.
> It sounds like what you are saying, is get a better lens. 
Yes - if you want better results quicker and easier. And by better, I 
mean both in general performance and in design suitability to the task 
at hand. If this is an exercise to have a lot of fun fussing around with 
cheap ways to use stuff in complex and inconvenient ways, forget I said 
anything. If you are trying to get the best images with the least 
trouble, that's where I'm trying to make suggestions.
> The 90 mm allows for shooting a 1:1 at a further distance away so that
more light is allowed in. 
First, I am not suggesting that you get a 90 mm lens. The camera I used 
for my examples has a sensor roughly twice as large as the one in your 
E-500. To get about the same working distance and angle of view on the 
E-500 that I had on the 5D, I am suggesting a 50 mm lens.
> The greater distance gives a better DOF too. 
>   
I don't know about that. There are a lot of factors involved in DOF, and 
I don't know what other lens set-up you would be comparing the 50/2.
> When I get real close, I may only get 10-20% of the frame in focus, yet I
> need that detail but of the whole object. With the Pixie cups, the
lighting
> was terrible and when I did have sun it was reflective. The pics that got
> posted were from far away, the ones where I was just getting the cup
itself
> in the picture only gave me a portion of the circle in focus.
>   
Yeah, that's a DOF issue, but, once they are cropped so that the cup 
appears large, is the DOF better than the other alternative? The version 
of your shot that I posted isn't as good as if I were working with the 
original image, but shows pretty clearly the DOF.
> I used a tri pod but looking though the view finder is  really a
challenge,
> the viewfinder with my glasses is already hard enough to use, 
Using an f2 auto lens, you will find the viewfinder image much brighter. 
For macro, you will be shooting stopped down a lot, but the fast lens 
makes the viewfinder brighter for framing and focusing. Focusing at a 
larger aperture also makes the visual DOF when focusing very shallow, so 
it is easier to set the focal plane at just the right distance.
> but at some
> non comfortable angle, I can only see the center easily, to see the
settings
> I have to move in such a way I can see the settings but then can't really
> see what I am shooting. Hence my desire to get back to having a LCD to
> compose with, but we are discussing Macro's.
>   
That is exactly what the E-330 is for. In B live view macro mode, you 
see on the LCD using the actual sensor that will capture the image. The 
LCD is adjustable for angle to make low angle shots easier, you can 
enlarge the image 10x on the screen for precise focus, and the DOF you 
see on the screen is exactly what you will get in the final image.

The E-330 is arguably the finest SLR made to date for macro work. The 
E-510 will lose the adjustable angle screen, but gain anti-shake. It 
looks from the prototype like the new pro model will have it all for macro.
> I'm not quite understanding this paragraph, let me know if my
interpretation
> is correct;
> Moose wrote:
> "Absent a change of camera and knowing that you have an EX-25 on the way, 
> I really think you would serve your goal well by saving up some pennies 
> for the DZ 50/2 macro. The 35/3.5 macro is cheaper and doesn't need the 
> EX-25 to go to 1:1, but the 2 stops more speed will make a big 
> difference in manual focus ease and accuracy. It will also have better 
> stand-off distance from the subjects and probably a better lens overall."
>
> I can use the 35/3.5 macro but the DZ 50/2 is 2 stops faster for more
light.
>   
More light for focusing, about the same for shooting. You can see better 
through the viewfinder, but will use the same f-stops ans shutter speeds.
> The 35/3.5 does 1:1 on it's own (does the DZ 50/2?)
>   
No, the 50/2 requires the EX-25 to get to 1:1. On its own, it only goes 
to 1:2. With 50/3.5 plus EX-25, you can get even closer. BUT, at the 
cost of being closer to the subject and dimmer viewfinder and more 
difficult focusing.
> Can I use the tube to get the image larger even though they are already
> Macro's, or is it just allowing me to get closer to the subject.
>   
They both happen together. Adding the tube requires you to get closer to 
the subject and also makes the image of the subject on the sensor bigger.
> Let me rephrase that as this is a question of it's own.
> The EX 25 lets me focus closer in, allowing me to get closer to the
subject,
> allowing the tiny image I want to capture to be as large on the frame as
> possible, yes?
>   
Yes, with a trade-off or two. As you have mentioned, when you get really 
close, you tend to block the light. Also, as you get closer and the 
image gets bigger, the effective speed of the lens becomes less, and 
longer exposures are needed.
> Does it make a difference if I use a Macro lens or not when I have the EX
> 25, assuming they were, say for instance, both 50 mm lens?
>   
Yes, very much. All optical design is a series of compromises. A normal 
50 mm lens is usually calculated to give its best results at 1:40, and 
worl very well from infinity to about 18 inches, or about 1:10. With a 
25 mm tube, it will make a more magnified image, but the sharpness will 
be poorer than at its normal working distances. Reversing the lesn is a 
way to alleviate this issue at even closer distances with the bellows, 
but still a compromise. A true macro design is optimized for work at 
close distances. (It will have a flatter field as well, but that's of no 
consequence for what you are doing.)

The OM  Zuiko 50 mm macros have a longer focusing helicoid so they can 
focus to 1:2, rather then the 1:10 of the normal 50 mm lenses. My 
testing shows the 50/3.5 to perform exceptionally well at 1:2. It is 
still quite good at 1:1, but not as good. Oly made a whole series of 
macro lenses optimized for different repro ratios, The 80/4 bellows lens 
is designed for 1:1

In summary, a true macro lens will focus closer and perform better at 
higher magnifications than a normal  lens of the same focal length. It 
will also focus closer with an extension tube than will a normal lens on 
the same tube.
> <snip>
> So you now see little flowers too! 
Not entirely new to me, I just haven't done it for a while, nor with 
digital equipment.
> Now start looking at the bugs that make the flower world go round, 
Yup, I am forever noticing bugs I didn't see when I took the picture.
> and with this new equipment on the E-500 I have
> started noticing pollen on the 2 mm wide fruiting bodies. Darn near, at
some
> point, I feel like I'll disappear into something looking at what it is
made
> up of (remembering the needle head that was shared yesterday) I try to get
> easily recognized objects into much of my smaller photography, it all
> started out looking for a flower in a book that was white and 2 inches
> across, turned out that in the field it is 3/4 ths of an inch across and
> usually purple, by the time we had found one, we had passed thousands of
> them.
>   
Getting accurate color is also possible, but takes yet another area of 
knowledge and technique. Not terribly arcane to do a decent job, just 
more to pay attention to.

Moose

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